Beauty is Imperfection

Dear Long-Suffering Beauty is Imperfection reader,

You probably noticed that my blogging has slacked off as of late. I apologize for this and guess I owe you an explanation. As regular readers know, I’m going to be a father soon, and impending parenthood has forced me to realign my priorities somewhat. When my son is born, I plan to give him most of my time as the work-at-home parent. This means a novel that I’ve been working on for a really long time (we’re talking years) will likely hit the circular file forever if I don’t get it done now. This has been a pet project of mine that has gotten me through years of unemployment, lonely bachelorhood, career disappointments and generic spiritual malaise. It’s largely been my substitute for religion, this novel, and I’m getting close to saying goodbye to it forever. By the time my son is born, I will only have time to send query letters out, and I’d like to have a complete work to share with agents.

Thus I’ve only had time for a few strident posts like the one I did on taxes yesterday. To my surprise, that blog hit a nerve, and I’ve gotten quite a few hits on it. It’s surprising because all I could think when I read it back to myself the first time was, “Gee, I’m getting increasingly humorless and strident, aren’t I?” Not good for a blog that used to be all funny all the time. In fact, I let the article sit for a week for that reason. But my dear readers all gave me the great vote of confidence I needed, spurred on by my close friend Chris Barton,  author of “Can I See Your I.D., True Stories of False Identities” (in your local independent book stores now!) Thank you Chris and everybody who liked the article, strident or otherwise!

Best to follow up with something harmless. I’ve got other things sitting idle on my desk as well, including quite a few pieces of music. So today I thought I’d share one with you.

Here is a piece with a pretense of being classical. Don’t worry, Salo Deguierre fans, I have not gone soft on you. This is actually just the opening of an album I’ve partially written called “The Mechanical Bean,” a satire about a family that obtains super powers after genetically modified food pollen from a corporate farm blows onto their land. The idea of this not-yet-finished album is to mix moods and genres, hence my first foray into “classical.”  I’ve got another piece I hope to share in a couple of days when I get it properly compressed.  That one’s more bluesy.

In the meantime, I hope you don’t think this blows, and if you do, then please enjoy re-reading my article on taxes!